The duality of Thomas Jefferson

This is what Thomas Jefferson saw from Monticello, the view as perfect as his high ideals. Well, I would like to welcome you to our slavery tour at Monticello, but today at Monticello what we see is the imperfect Jefferson. Monticello was a plantation and we must judge for ourselves. Jefferson professed a hate slavery called an abominable crime but he held on to his slaves he freed only seven the author of the Declaration of Independence who wrote that all men are created equal owned six hundred slaves throughout his life and in addition to his legitimate children he almost certainly had at least six other children with his slave Sally Hemings over generations.

Sally Hemings' descendants have been telling stories involving Jefferson, the father of her children. DNA proof of a connection came in 1998. Is Thomas Jefferson any less good because of the knowledge we have of him? Now it is three-dimensional. Most human beings I know are quite capable of denial and hypocrisy and I think Jefferson's virtues were enormous and his vices were equally enormous. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham has just published a new best-selling biography of our third president. See Dad in full, you meet a man whose life was made possible by slavery who had misgivings that as a young man he tried, however feebly, to reform. the institution but in the end he was someone who was trapped and allowed himself to be trapped by the economic, political and cultural circumstances in which he was born.

Jefferson said that his first memory was of being handed on a pillow as a small child to a slave on horseback and we know that his last words were asking Burl Cobert to adjust his pillow here in this room are Jefferson's, but Burrell Tolbert was also a slave, there would have been an intimate relationship from birth to death. Elizabeth Chu is a curator at Monticello now, is there furniture in this room that was made by slaves? Yes, in the carpentry shop or in the The furniture manufacturing carpentry shop in Jefferson's later years was run by a slave named John Hemings and Hemings ran the carpentry shop and made much of the furniture found today at Monticello.

This is an example that he was very skilled and Jefferson freed him in his will and given the tools of his trade, John Hemings is remembered for his craftsmanship, unlike many of Jefferson's other slaves, for being able to have a sort of image of Jefferson that we all know and behind him the names of the 600 people he owned during his life. It really means that we have to understand slavery in order to understand Jefferson Lonnie. The group runs the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, sponsor of a traveling exhibit on slavery at Monticello, and what's powerful is quite sincere, we only know the first things and there. are some we just had is unknown Lucy Lucy is almost any old name that is exactly correct this is Thomas Jefferson's laptop desk this is the desk on which he wrote the first drafts of the declaration of independence the first of those drafts attacked the slave trade in Britain Jefferson wrote that King George III has waged a cruel war against human nature itself, the Continental Congress pulled out the phrase next to the rejected passage, financial reality next to it is his farm book and here is where you would list the births and deaths of the slaves you would list.

The work they did in some ways really gives us a complete picture of the whole of Jefferson, which sometimes contradicts the popular image of Jefferson as a benevolent slaveholder. The man once again occupied half of this place. Inside there were four forges. An example. What happened at Jefferson's extremely profitable nail-making shop in Monticello when you were a kid, your job was to move the nails, but around the time of year 12, 13, 14, your job is to make these nails, the kids were whipped. routinely to force them to do so. most productive what happened while Jefferson was at Monticello happened when he was gone because in the 18th century you couldn't run a plantation without using violence a man of his time Jefferson thought he was benevolent but even his plan to end slavery would be considered racist today his opinion was that at best there could be emancipation but then there would be repatriation there would be colonization African American slaves would leave the United States he did not foresee an integrated biracial society one of the many ironies of his life because he created a biracial society at Monticello this is the portrait imagined by an artist of Sally Hemings sister of John Hemings the furniture maker was also believed to be the wife of Thomas Jefferson the half sister of Martha the entire Hemings family ended up at Monticello but it was in Paris in the decade 1780 while Jefferson was already a widower by then. minister in France, but allegedly began a nearly 40-year sexual relationship with Sally, who was there with him by law, she was free in France before agreeing to return Virginia to slavery, she set terms according to her descendants, he said : I will return with 21 Jefferson must have been totally taken aback by this determined, I think quite brave woman, in September 1802 a Richmond, Virginia newspaper revealed that Jefferson said that this girl Sally, our president, has had several children since. that the story of Jefferson Hemings was whispered from generation to generation for nearly 200 years by Sally Hemings' descendants, many of whom passed as white.

It's been an interesting journey for me because it started when I was a kid, when I would stand up in class and say that Thomas Jefferson is my great-great-grandfather and be so happy and proud to brag about it, you know, when we're studying the presidents, but then when the teacher says sit down and stop telling lies and all that. kids laugh at you in the mid-1990s laughter had stopped historians even at Monticello were becoming believers television reporter Shannon Lanier is a direct descendant of Sally Hemings through her son Madison Hemings before that meeting alone had met the Hemings descendants of the Madison line the family didn't even know the Jefferson line Shannon Lanier right in front there were 19 when he and Jane Feldman attended the controversial first combined Hemings Jefferson family reunion at Monticello in 1999 , the photographer who took this photo, traveled across the country interviewing four generations of Hemings and Jefferson for a book Jefferson's Children Our journey into Jefferson's story acts as a catalyst for people to discuss the issue of slavery we had a very large, thick family Bible and my mother inherited it from an uncle and there was an entry in there, among others, Brown Colvard in 2006.

Bill Webb's wife, doing a little research, found that Brown Kolbert was listed as a slave of Monticello. It turns out that he was the brother of Jefferson's butler, Burrell Kolbert, and as a child he worked in the nail-making shop. which Webb decided he had to see. Here I am standing on the same land where my ancestor had worked when he was a young preteen and now that is heavy, it was something that made me cry saying Oh my God, oh my God, Thomas Jefferson is buried at Monticello. Inscribed on his monument are the accomplishments he wanted to be remembered for, including the Declaration of Independence, but he will also be remembered for the legacy that is not written here.